The Evidence for Nerve Repair in Obstetric Brachial Plexus Palsy Revisited

Table 2

Summary of included papers.

Paper	Design	Population	CT (n)	NR (n)	Selection	Mean age of surgery	Follow-up	Evaluation	Statistics	Evidence
Gilbert and Tassin 1984 [6]	Retro	Comparison of referred patients to two different hospitals with different treatment	44	38	Biceps strength at 3 mo			Mallet	None	4
Boome and Kaye 1988 [3]	Retro	Patients selected and not selected for surgery	42 CT + 2 neurolysis	18	Biceps and deltoid strength	5.3 mo	18 mo; (1 mo–5 yr)	MRC	None	4/5
Capek et al. 1998 [7]	Retro*	Patients with nerve reconstruction compared to (historical) cohort of neurolysis	16 neurolysis	26	AMS composite score	9.0 mo (±2.3)	12 mo	AMS	Yes	4
Lin et al. 2009 [8]	Retro*	Patients with nerve reconstruction compared to (historical) cohort of neurolysis	16 neurolysis	92	AMS composite score	7.8 mo (±2.7)	min 4 yr	AMS	Yes	4
Waters 1999 [9]	Retro	Patients selected and not selected for surgery.	33	6	Biceps strength at 6 mo		2–11 yr	Mallet	Yes	4
Al-Qattan 2000 [10]	Retro	Patients selected and not selected for surgery.	30	3	Biceps strength at 4 mo		min 18 mo	AMS	Yes	4
Xu et al. 2000 [11]	Retro	Late referrals treated conservatively versus neurolysis versus reconstruction	12 CT + 9 neurolysis	10	Biceps strength at 3 mo	5 mo (3–6 mo)	40–54 mo	Mallet	Yes	4
Strömbeck et al. 2000 [12]	Retro	Patients selected and not selected for surgery excluding early recovery	53	59	Inconsistent: biceps strength at 3 or 6 mo	3–12 mo	min 5 yr	Own scoring system	Yes	4
Badr et al. 2009 [13]	Retro	Patients selected and not selected for surgery	155	16	No biceps or shoulder function at 7–10 mo	16 mo (8–36 mo)	24 mo	Impairment rating	None	4

CT: conservative treatment; NR: nerve reconstruction; Retro: retrospective; *retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data; mo: month(s); yr: year(s); min: minimal.